Parliamentary elections to take place in November

Elections for the People's Assembly – the lower house of parliament – will be held in three stages, the first commencing on 21st November. The announcement by the head of the electoral commission, Abdel Moez Ibrahim, has gone some way to allaying fears that Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has no intention of transferring power to a duly elected civil authority. This followed a series of decisions by the Council, including the extension of emergency laws in time and scope, and restrictions on the media. This raised concern that the gains of what is known as the 25th January revolution were being reversed.

Elections to the Shura Council, the upper house, will start on 22nd January. Final details of the voting days and procedures, including constituency boundaries, are due to be released on 26th September, after which campaigning can begin. Assistant Defence Minister, and member of SCAF, Gen Mamdouh Shahin, said: “The People's Assembly elections will be held at the end of November over three stages of two weeks each, followed by the Shura Council elections on the same basis.”

The decision followed a meeting between SCAF and 47 political parties and movements.

The new parliament is due to set up a 100 constituent assembly to draw up a new or revised constitution. No date has yet been fixed for presidential elections.

The proposed electoral system will have half the seats chosen according to party lists, by proportional representation, and the other half by direct vote in constituencies, via the first past the post system. This structure is, in effect, a compromise between the new and the old.

But the Muslim Brotherhood has criticised the compromise as favouring the old ruling party and traditional political families who have long dominated political life in rural areas. Secretary-general of the Freedom and Justice Party, the electoral vehicle of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Saad el-Katatni said: "We reject the suggested election law [as we want] to block the remnants of the National Democratic Party (NDP) and prevent the use of money or tribalism …We will demand that all parliament seats shall be elected through closed proportional lists."

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© 2011 Menas Associates

Egypt: MB fears heavy loses in poll

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Egypt's biggest opposition party, has failed to win any seats outright in the first round of the parliamentary election. The group has accused the Egyptian government of rigging votes and said that a few of its candidates will stand in a run-off vote on 5th December.

"Only a few will stand in a run-off, but not a single Brotherhood candidate won in the first round," said, the head of the MB's bloc of 88 seats in the outgoing parliament, Saad al-Katatni.

Results of the poll are yet to be officially confirmed, but it appears that the losers include MB's leader in parliament. There were reports of protests and violence during Election Day, with many of the MB supporters prevented from casting their vote.

MB supporters and have spoken out against the Egyptian government, saying it has annihilated the multi-party system, compromised freedom of speech and the integrity of the elections. A spokesman for the party has warned that infringement of these rights will lead to more violence as achieving change by peaceful means becomes increasingly impossible.

The MB is officially prohibited from taking part in the elections; therefore its candidates stand as independents. The liberal New Wafd party also had no winners, with a handful of candidates going into run-offs. President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) is expected to win the majority of the votes. The new parliament will have 518 members, 508 of whom will be elected and 10 will be appointed by presidential decree.

Source: BBC News

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US calls on Egypt to allow foreign election monitors

The US has called on Egypt to allow foreign election monitors for its 28th November parliamentary elections and greater freedoms in regard to political gatherings and media coverage. In the past, Egypt has perennially refused to allow international monitors into the country, saying it does not need external supervision when it comes to its political proceedings.

Speaking about the lack of freedoms within Egypt, opposition leader George Ishaq said, “they say this and then we know what happened and what will happen,” adding that the Egyptian elections are “the farthest thing from free and if anyone believes the government they are mistaken.”

In view of past elections and recent censures of the country's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the international community has expressed concern about the bias nature of the Egyptian election process and the integrity of the vote set to take place at the end of the month.

The Egyptian government has recently arrested dozens of MB members and has periodically restricted media coverage of opposition campaigns. The US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley recently issued a statement saying, “An open electoral process would include a credible and impartial mechanism for reviewing election-related complaints, a domestic election observation effort according to international standards, and the presence of international observers.”

The government said it would allow local civil society groups to monitor the parliamentary elections, but Ishaq and other critics think these measures are simply not enough to ensure a fair election. As opposition activists in Cairo continually push for greater freedoms and a change in how government functions, they have called on president Barack Obama to follow his June 2009 speech in Cairo with action.

“We want Obama to stand for us disenfranchised people, but right now he is just giving lip service to us because they don't want to ruin their relationship with the government,” said another activist Reda Hamza.

Source: Bikya Masr

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Ghad to join ElBaradei in boycotting parliamentary elections

Egypt's opposition party, Ghad, has said that it will join Mohamed ElBaradei in boycotting the parliamentary elections. Last week, ElBaradei urged the nation to boycott the elections, saying that they would be rigged by the government and anyone who took part would be, “going against national will”.

"We respect the opinion of ElBaradei in the boycott. This man is a great weight in the process of change, and we respect him,” said Ghad chairman Ayman Nour.

The Ghad party voted against participation in the parliamentary elections and were joined by both Egypt's Kefaya movement and the communist party, in hope that united opposition would deny legitimacy to the ruling party.

Nour ran against President Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 presidential elections, coming in a close second. He was jailed soon after the elections for allegedly submitting forged documents when setting up Ghad.

According to Ghad co-founder Wael Nawara, the party will aim to “lay down new rules” and “work to create a new parliament and a new constitution.”

Rights groups have expressed concern that the parliamentary elections, due to take place in November, will be rigged after an upper house vote, in June, saw the ruling party win most seats.

Source: Reuters

For more news and expert analysis about Egypt, please see Egypt Politics & Security.